Blessed Beltane Eve

Wishing everyone a very Blessed Beltane Eve. The chaplet is made, the sky is clear, and the Fae dance their magic while the Veil is thin. Fires are lit, dancing and merriment abound!

Shop highlight

Just a heads up for everyone in the local pagan community, Raven and Broomstick in Leighton Buzzard are staying open till eight for Full Moon NEXT FRIDAY 19th April. Note to self, drink the coffee THEN do the writing thing!) See you there 🙂 A chance to say hi to other pagans in the area besides it being a fantastic shop. Our shops are often the hub of our communities, and they always need our support.

 

BB to the Raven and Broomstick team for their first late night Full Moon opening. Also leaves plenty of time for your own Full Moon devotions afterwards.

Petition time

This post is mostly for folks in the UK, my apologies to my lovely overseas readers (I’m amazed I even HAVE overseas readers, to be honest. Thank you so much for coming and reading my little piece of the net)

So we have a number of countryside issues that need highlighting, along with the awfulness of the current political situation (worldwide, really, that one) I figured my pagan friends might like to see some issues that could do with support.

 

Firstly, our beautiful brown hare is under threat, she’s such an iconic pagan image, she has come to represent the Divine Femenine, from Isobel Gowdie’s  ‘an I shall go into a hare’ hints at shapeshifting, to the Easter symbolism, our iconic brown hare needs all the help she can get. Please consider signing this petition. I can attest to the fact that the numbers are falling, we used to have lots around here, the numbers took a hit during the seventies before we had the wildlife laws, and they made a comeback, one ride out on The White Horse years ago I was lucky enough to see six of them, and that was beaten by one ride on the new to us at the time Red Horse, by seeing eight of them, within the area of two fields. One of which was crouching right by his feet, and I am in eternal gratefulness to the Goddess that she stayed put, as the Red Horse was quite keen on taking off for no reason and legging it to the next county given half a chance and an excuse! Now we are lucky to see maybe one or two. Apparently that awful man made disease Myxamatosis has now jumped the species barrier and is infecting our beautiful hares. Between that, the coursing, the farming practices…well, you can see why this petition is needed.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/230349?fbclid=IwAR3X2QVgK0HHtEerP9aGff_mYytXET7whnaH-V_RQ3R_bgYx3E1Mkg533js

 

Further to that petition, it’s becoming ‘normal’ tho illegal practice to net hedges to prevent birds nesting if there’s going to be building work going on. There needs to be more legislation and far more awareness of this practice, we are already losing so many species of birds due to farmers ripping out natural hedgerows to make more room for crops (seen that happening round here too, although we are luckier in that our farms are so long established that the hedging is more a series of trees, we have all manner of bird life, and long may that continue)

 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/244233?fbclid=IwAR2ClN_C2NMBODNNLsiwYqPqfoPZFXBpD1JtQ7N11M56PPYVedK2SC8SUUAll

As Pagans, Druids, Witches and Wiccans and all the other many and beautifully varied paths we follow, one thing links us all, a reverence and respect for Nature and her teachings, for the very land which creates and sustains us, for the creatures and birds that live on it and have no voices other than the one we raise to speak for them. They are crying out for help and it needs to be us to answer that  challenge.

 

Thank you for reading

 

Blessed Be all

Magical night

Much has been made of the third ‘super moon’ but I can see why. The very air is charged with the rising spring sap, and the power of this incredible moon. Salute to Nion the Ash tree, revered as the World Tree and one of the sacred woods. His silhouette a contrast to the silvered sky. Not yet clothed in leaf, but skeletal beauty for all to see, the great sweeping branches under which the stables are sheltered.

The sky is hazy, the night is still, the odd sleepy craaaark! from our rookery and small rustlings in the hedgerow the only sounds. The scent of daffodils and blackthorn blossom in the air. The Spring Equinox promise of warmth and joy to come. Most things lie quiet though. The brightly shining moon makes it almost like daylight. Tomorrow will dawn earlier, and the almost imperceptible march towards longer days begins, but for now, I just sit and connect with the moon.

Brightest full moon blessings to all!

Happy Equinox!

Whether you are in the north or south hemisphere, have a wonderful Equinox.

Happy Mercury Retrograde y’all!

Nothing seems to get modern Witches in a twitter more than another period of Mercury going retrograde, but what exactly IS meant by this? Here’s a post I made one of the FB forums to explain.

As you know everything in our solar system revolves around our sun, and because they don’t all revolve at the same speed (we take a year to go around once, jupiter takes 4331.57 Earth days!) we are at different places on that big circle, retrograde in planetary terms means ‘to appear to move backwards (retro being the key word) when a planet is said to be retrograde it means that from where the earth is on the revolution this planet appears to be moving backwards.

It’s just an optical illusion (hold up a finger in front of your nose, close one eye, hold up a finger on your other hand, behind your first hand, and make a deosil circle with it, at some point the moving finger is going to look like it’s moving against the deosil direction because it’s on it’s orbit, it’s still moving in the direction you wanted, but to your eye it is going backwards, it’s the same thing)

Now energy wise Mercury is the ruler of communication, when it is ‘retrograde’ things tend to go haywire with communciation, emails get lost, misunderstandings occur, things just don’t run as smoothly as us humans would wish. The wise witch buckles down and gets on with things, double and triple checking everything and backing it up with a phone call if necessary! The flip side is we often find ourselves drawn back to things from our past, either they resurface to be dealt with, or we renew our connections and find different meanings in things that we thought had passed on (it’s not all bad!) Because Mercury has a very short solar year (only 58 days compared to our 365) it means that it can revolve several times around the sun and go retrograde more than once or twice (every planet in the solar system goes retro at some point in the year, according to the comparative orbits with the earth.

A retrograde is perfectly normal, but because of the influences the planets have over our lives, some have more effect than others. The trick is not to panic. (got to admit that when many people are posting the above image all over FB, Insta and the regular social media channels, that can be a bit frightening if you don’t know about these things.

Just double check all communciations channels, be sure you are clear and precise about your intentions, and back every instruction up to be sure. They say it’s not a good time to make decisions or take on new tasks, but the world being what it is, I defy anyone to be able to put these off until Mercury goes on his merry way! Just be aware..

 

It’s Saturn Return you should be seriously worried about!!

 

BB, May the Odds be in your Favour, and, this years meme ‘may your retrograde be more Freddie and less Retro’!

Seriously, I should stay off Social Media!

Remembering Sarah

Sarah’s death has hit the Pagan Pride community here in the UK hard. I had the honour of meeting this lady last year, and tho in the rush of Pagan Pride Anglia I didn’t talk much to her during the day, I could tell she was a lovely lady. Very dedicated to her Path, to her Community (her Pagan Pride area was I think the first to begin this in the UK) and to her friends and family. I was impressed at how she and the others of the team worked so seamlessly to get everything together, she seemed to be a born organiser. She will be so very sorely missed. The outpouring of love on social media is bittersweet. So much love, but to lose her at such a young age. My thoughts and condolences to her family, friends and community.

Posted by Ashley Mortimer on FB

Today is a day of sadness, we gather in community and Love as we mark the passing of our beautiful Sarah from the physical world, sure in the knowledge that we will meet again, know her, remember and Love again.

Please post, send or tag your pictures of purple candles lit today and tonight in honour and Love of “one of us”, a bright and brilliant Fenix Flame who will forever light up our lives and is, now, forever always young. L&BB. xxx

• For Sarah, Walk in Beauty, wherever your Spirit roams. BB

 

On the Full Moon

May her light guide you through the darkness, illuminating the paths you need to walk.

BB

Imbolc 2019

Moot Reminder

Moot reminder from Queenie Anne Easton – to

Bedfordshire Pagan Moot at The Half Moon

 

 

Just a quick reminder our Moot is on Sunday 3rd February at 3pm (at The Half Moon in Kempston, Bedfordshire) Topic will be on Mediumship and Past Lives. Please feel free to bring your tarot cards and have a go at a past life reading. See you all soon. Blessings Queenie & Simon xx